Thought we'd start a red cedar project to help keep away the winter blahs. The break? in the title is in parenthesis 'cause you never know with red cedar. The second bow to come off the tillering rack was a red cedar. It lived long enough to fling about 500 arrows before ungracefully exiting. There have been many others since that first one and hopefully there are many more to come.

We have a 3" diameter log to work with. One side of it is pretty clean but the rest of it has several pins to work around. It's close to 8' long and perfectly straight so it should be pretty easy to lay out and dodge as many pins as possible. From the end grain it looks like the heart is marbled with white and yellow. This type of marbling makes a striking combination of colors in the belly and handle.

It will be hickory backed. This is my first hickory backed red cedar so it's going to be a learning experience. Haven't decided on the draw weight yet but it will be a handle bow, 66" ntn with flat limbs and around 1 3/8" at the widest part. Cross your fingers with me?

Hank

If you build it, they will come. Especially if you post lots of pictures. Bill

Nice! I love buildalongs. Jawge

I have a red cedar "log" of about the same size drying in my garage. I'm not starting on it till I see what happens to yours!

Jim

Gonna be lots of pictures Bill. Got a new camera for Christmas.

Keep your fingers crossed Jawge.

Oh sure, thanks Jim. I'll be the guinea pig! (insert belly laugh here) This one should, not will, but should turn out good. The last cedar was built from a similar log with linen backing to pull 45# @ 28". It was a good shooter and would be alive today had I not gone stupid with it- tried to up the draw weight by cutting back the tips. Got the draw weight up to 57# @ 25" but it lasted less than 150 shots after the trim. It shot 100's of arrows before the trim. A hard lesson in red cedar learned.

Sweet, I am due to try another ERC, might learn enough from your buildalong to keep one together. Got some that is dry, just need to get after it.

Sorry to post with nothind to add, but it makes it easier for me to site-search the thread. Good luck.

Hank I'm along for the ride, absolutely no experience with red cedar so I'll be watching and learning. Keep us posted and I don't think you will need it but my fingers are crossed. God Bless, Jr.

Lombard, Jr by no means am I an expert but we'll give it the best effort. Hope you don't pick up any of my bad habits!

Thanks Baa. Post away!

O.k. Hank..... You have my undivided attention. I would like to do the exact same build. When did you cut it, and how long has it been drying? What process did you use?

In the furnace room...attic

Thanks in advance!

Got all of the shaggy bark cleaned off down to the outer cambium. Trimmed off the "elephant foot" at the root end. Trimmed the opposite end back to get rid of some bigger knots. Ended up with a 78" long piece of cedar which is plenty long enough to work with. The log is oval shaped so I was hoping to use one of the wide sides as the back of the bow. But, as you can see from the pics, there happens to be a few larger knots that would fall in the middle of the back on both of the wide sides. The top two with the rule is one side, the bottom two is the opposite side. If all of these knots were 1/8" in diameter or smaller then either wide side could be used as the back but as it stands, the narrow sides give the best option. We'll draw up a detailed map of both of the narrow sides and see which one is best used for the back. It's important to know the location, orientation and number of pins in addition to the size of each one. The selection of the side for the back is based on the lesser values of the pin data. We can start carving after all that is settled.

Prevere, it was cut about 3 months ago and stored in the loft of the workshop. It's an excellent air drying environment. Its moisture content is still a little high but I like to work red cedar while relatively green. It learns to bend better than when totally dry but you have to be careful with it to not induce excess string follow. Aggressive tillering is a no-no.

Very interesting. Thanks. Jawge

I made a cedar bow and it was good at about 29#

Got it laid out and mapped. Divided the log in half across the wide sides, struck a chalk line down the middle of each side then arbitrarily assigned labels "A" and "B" to the narrow sides. On the A side there are 8 pins/knots larger than 3/16". At around 18" from the root end of the A side is a partially healed wound and at 75 3/4" is a 3/8" pin. The B side contains 7 pins/knots larger than 3/16" but none larger then 1/4". Placed an overlay of the bow shape on the B side map and shifted it around to find the best layout. The best places a 1/4" pin about mid limb in both the upper and lower with a 1/8" pin close to one edge of the lower limb. It's been my experience that pins in the back larger than 1/4" can be problematic. Close to half of all of the limb failures of previous cedar bows was due to larger pins in the back. Hopefully the hickory backing of this bow will even out the stress around these two pins and keep the limbs sound. We can have a better look at the pins after it's carved out. So, it's time to start carving!

It's blocked out, got rid of a lot of pins in the process. The top pic is of the two pins in the back of the lower limb. They are smaller than originally thought so this is good. The middle pic is of the pin in the back of the upper limb. It measures close to 1/4" but we already knew that. The bottom pic shows the marbling in the belly wood. It's going to make one purty bow!

We'll get the back planed down next and ready for the glue up.

Wow...this is gonna be good!

Chris

Hank no wonder you asked about the speed, you are calculated and precise. Very nice approach, I am going to pick up some pointers. I would love to see a true master lay out the same stave and then compare it with your lay up. I bet they would come out the same just two different approaches, very cool. That wood is beautiful to say the least. Thanks for the build along! Jr.

Chris, keep your fingers crossed with me?

Thanks Jr. Everybody has their own technique but if you take a close look at the pics you can see that I cheat too.

The log is now a stave. Got it planed down to 7/8" thick and ready for the backing. Gotta love that fresh cedar aroma. Picked out a straight grained 1/4" thick piece of hickory to marry to the stave. First time backing cedar with hickory, having trouble deciding which glue to use- TB3 or urethane. Given the oily nature of cedar maybe urethane would be better?

Good luck with the build.

Yes, like the smell of fresh cedar!

Russell

Hank, have you ever used Urac185? Not one failure for me, since switching to it. Good gap filling properties.

Hank I have a question. I am new to bow building and so this is just a question. I am watching your thread closely because I would love to make one of these bows myself. Everything that I have read about hickory backing bows suggests a thickness of 1/8"or less so as not to over power the belly wood. Is 1/4" awful thick or is this the way it needs to be for red cedar ? I have only made board bows so far and thus don't have a lot of experience in this area. Most of my board bows are about 3/8" thick at the nocks for bows in the 45 - 55 lb range. That would only leave about 1/8" of cedar on the belly if these dimensions remain fairly close for this bow. Please do not take this as critisism, I am merely trying to learn something here. There is a red cedar on a piece of property that I hunt that has a double trunk starting about 8' up. Where the main trunk is close to the 2nd trunk, there is not a single limb for probably 8 to 10 feet and is almost perfectly straight. I'm thinking this might make a really nice stave. I can't wait to see how this turns out. Keep it comming and good luck on the bow.

hank hold it bro got a news flash for ya 1/4 hickory and that sucker s gonna blow you have to keep the hickory thin i mean thin or it will crush ur ceader and blow i make mine 1/8 and i sand em way down from there good job so far good luck i say get ur hickory down to about 1/16 th brock

Never used Urac 185 Lombard. Did some reading on it a while back and found nothing but good news about its performance. But, I have to stay away from it. Why? Spent the majority of my career working with and around chemicals and developed sensitivity to several types. Formaldehyde, the principal ingredient of Urac 185, could mean bad news.

bfulldraw, diamondback- Yes, 1/4" is too thick for practical use. We'll glue it up first then plane it down to the right thickness.

The glue up is under wrap, literally. Decided to go with tried and true TB3. Did a dry fit first, no light visible in the joint anywhere along the length of the soon to be bow. Washed everything several times with alcohol and mineral spirits until the red part of the cedar turned pretty pale. Hit both parts with a clean rag then blow dryer between washings. Goobered both pieces up with the TB, set the backing in place then tacked each end down with a wire brad to keep it from squirming around while adding the shrink wrap. Wrapped it then checked the squish out before calling it done. It looked good so I'm comfortable with the results and believe we have a good glue up.

Sure is a beautifull piece of wood. Following along, and good luck.

Thanks Bob. Sure hope you heal up fast.

Hank, May be a novice question here but I don't see any clamps or bands..Are you using the saran wrap as the device to hold them together?

Yes, the wrap is used instead of clamps. Wrapping it in a spiral and pulling it snug as you go places even pressure along the whole length of the backing. It's hard, for me anyway, to get the same result with clamps.

Shrink wrap and a long rubber band I have a friend who works as a nurse and get's me the rubber ribbons they use once to draw blood and pitch, Three will do up a bow tight.I have used them only to draw rawhide tight after a glue up and it will draw the hide down tight and push out the water and the hide will dry a clear amber instead of the white you get with a Ace bandage. I don't think it would starve out a wood to wood glue up.

I've come to appreciate the shrink wrap also Hank. Even pressure as light or as tight as you need it. That and it cocoons the mess, no drips no spills, and easy clean up.

GW, I plan on making slingshots for the grand kids using those phlebotomy bands. Going to use a couple on the next handle glue up too. My wife is a registered nurse so we have a few of them around.

I hear you Lombard. You mentioned using it a while back on another thread. Thanks for the great tip! Clamps for backing are obsolete in my book.

Hank, thats an old picture, I healed up fine thanks. Does the shrink wrap increase dry time?

Good to hear everything is ok now Bob. Sure looks painful! The wrap does slow things down. Finished the glue up around 8:30 this morning and by 5:00 this afternoon most of the squished out glue under the wrap was dry. We'll leave it under the wrap overnight, strip it off then let it cure another 24 hours before going any farther with it.

ttt

Something weird has happened. Have a look at the top two pics. The stave now has 11/16" of deflex after adding the backing. It was dead straight before, not now. Lacking familiarity with adding hickory to cedar doesn't help much. Dunno if this is a typical result or if something more sinister lies underneath? Not sure what has happened here. Maybe some of it will pull out as the glue cures? I don't think the project is ruined. I just don't like seeing that ahead of the tillering phase.

Enough of that rant! It's cut to length, 68". Got a good seam of glue along all of the edges of the backing. Bless the shrink wrap. We'll get the backing planed down tomorrow and then decide what to do about the deflex.

good luck

i wish she'll come to something you like

max

This is great. Thank you for sharing.

Thank Max. You get what you get, not always what you want. It will work out a-ok. (with fingers still crossed)

You're welcome MP1SG. This has to be the most incredible hobby there is.

Was the hickory, by chance, stored in really dry conditions before you glued it up?

Jim

The backing was moved from the unheated workshop into the house about two weeks ago Jim. It is pretty dry out there. The house stays at about 68% RH. The stave has about 12% moisture in it. Didn't check the moisture of the backing. Maybe it didn't have enough time to recapture some moisture before gluing it up? That would make sense. Relatively wet stave, fairly dry backing, throw in some wet glue and presto! Instant deflex. What are your thoughts?

This bow is starting to take shape. The back is planed down to 5/32" thick, profiled and ready for final sanding. The back is 1 5/16" wide at the fades and starting mid limb tapers to 1/2" at the tips. Took some short pieces of French walnut and made a riser and overlay blanks for the tips. Chiseled away all but 1/32" of the backing at the tips to set the blanks in. Shaped the blanks to high profile to leave enough wood for final shaping and finish sanding. Block sanded the sides and belly with 60 grit sandpaper to remove the heavy tool marks. Glue on the riser and we're ready to start tillering. This is a solid piece of cedar and with the backing should easily handle a 55-60# draw @ 28".

Kept thinking about the deflex thing while whittling away on the stave. This may be a mistake but I decided to leave it alone. Cedar is generally pretty tame to shoot and a bit deflex will make it even more so imo. We'll have to go really, really slow and easy with the tillering to keep the string follow to a minimum. So, it's on to the next step. Thanks for watching!

So far, so good. That idea of gluing a thick back and then planing it down to what ever thicknes you want is an excellant idea. Bill

Thanks Bill. Doing everything by hand, I find it easier to work the backing after it's on the stave. It's easier to hold in place and easier to visualize the outcome before beginning.

Glued the riser on with TB3, wrapped it with medical banding and let it sit overnight. Filed the sides of the riser flush to the sides of the bow then marked the miter depth on all 3 sides of the riser. Marked the sides of the bow at 3" increments starting at the tips. I like to mark the limbs this way to have consistent reference points for checking the tiller of each limb and for limb to limb comparison. Now we're ready to start tillering.

Lookin good so far! It's so cool to see the different ways folks make bows. Kind of like making arrows...lots of right ways. This is gonna be a stunning bow.

Chris

Nice.

Will be following along.

Just my thoughts on a possible reason for the deflex. When you glued the stave up were the limbs hanging off the side of that table like in the above photo? I'm just curious because the same thing happened to a burlap backed Maple bow I made 3 months ago. I glued up the backing with TB2, put a couple of spring clamps on to hold the burlap down and stuck it in my vice. The next day I noticed there was about an inch of deflex on both limbs. I was sure it was from the weight of the glue,clamps and possibly the moisture content. I was worried at first but then realised it would probably come out once I started tillering. Luckily I was right and it came out slowly. Maybe it was a combination of the moisture content, weight of the Hickory, and a little gravity. Or maybe Im wrong. I don't know that much about cedar. Hope to do a cedar bow myself but I know how hard it is find a good stave. Especially here in New York. Good luck. TJ

Thanks Chris & Buzz. I start getting pretty anxious when it's time to start tillering. Not just this one but every one I make. Why is it so hard to fight the urge to hurry things up? Gotta go slow and easy with this one. Must fight urge.......Must fight urge.......

I'm pretty sure moisture had a lot,if not everything, to do with this one TJ. Just wish the moisture content of the backing was known before glue up. It laid on one side fully supported while the glue cured so gravity/weight was not a factor for this one. It is a curious situation. We'll check both parts on the next one and go from there. Always did like solving a mystery. Good to hear yours straightened up. How's it looking now?

I am enjoying following along with this one, thanks for posting. Looking good so far! Jr.

Hank, I am enjoying this buildalong. Good job. Jawge

Jr, Jawge- It's good to hear you're enjoying the show. I'm having a blast with this one. Red cedar is my favorite type of wood. The color, the character, the aroma...it gets inside you. We all know that bow making is addictive and red cedar, for me anyway, kicks the desire into overdrive. Know what I mean?

Hold on to those bands, they stopped using those where I work because of latex allergies. The new latex free bands are not even close.

I do, Hank. I do. :) Jawge

Dat dar red cedar is sum purty stuff. I got two nice small logs seasoning right now. Can't wait to start cuttin into mine.

At last. Time to tiller! There's lots of ways to take the extra wood off the belly. A belt sander works, a chisel works and so does a hatchet. I like to use a surface grinder. My 5 1/2" model works great. Easy to control, easy to see where you're going and quick to take away the wood. Make a few light passes on each limb then check the amount of flex in the limbs. Repeat until the limbs respond evenly and equally to moderate pressure against the floor. When the floor tiller looks good, stop! Don't grind any more away. Flex each limb slowly and equally to teach 'em how to bend. The limbs on this bow was flexed 100 times before going to the rack.

On the rack we see how the bow looks after being floor tillered. It looks pretty good considering the 11/16" deflex already in it. Hooked up the long string and started pulling. Worked it up to 20 lbs which gives it almost 2" of bend. You can see that in the second rack pic. Held it at 20 lbs for a few minutes then flexed the limbs 100 times. Relaxed the string and let it rest a while. Repeated the process working the limbs up to 30 lbs. Flexed the limbs 100 times and let it rest. The 3rd rack pick shows how it looks at 30 lbs. The 4th rack pic shows it at 40 lbs and the 5th one shows it at 50 lbs. At 50 lbs we're getting close to 8" of bend. The limbs aren't bending the same and the left limb is noticeably stiffer than the right one. Still a lot of limb work to do but it's almost time for the short string.

I like to get on the short string as soon as possible. It's easy for me to miss the target draw weight by spending too much time on the long string . Once the limbs are flexed a few hundred times, bending fairly close to each other and close to the full brace height I switch to the short string. But before switching, some clean up work is required.

Before going to the short string I like to clean up the radius at the handle/riser and block sand the belly to remove every last mark left by the grinder. Once that is finished a radius is added to take away the sharp corners. Cut notches in the tips then hook up the short string and finish the tiller.

As an aside, the deflex grew from 11/16" to 1 3/32" on the long string. Definitely not ideal but still not too bad. Given the amount it grew on the long string I'm expecting to see 2" when the tillering is finished. We'll see how it goes.

What happened with the pic? You can't tiller that thing! We'll try it again.

Looks like she is starting to come around Hank.

Hank, lookin' good like cedar should. Jawge

I like how you cut in the blocks for the tips.

Thanks guys. It's slowly coming around. Might have a shooter by this time next week?

Cool build along Hank. Those knots going through the limbs look scary to me. Hope it works out for you. Cedar sure look nice with a finish on them.

I wish you all the best on this one and am learning as you go. Those knots are scaring me too, but I have zero experience with cedar. Keep going, this one is fun and informative. Jr.

Guar, Jr, thanks. Those pins are actually in a good place. They run parallel to the back, close to 1/4" deep into the heartwood. Now if they ran otherwise, like at an angle to the back, then this bow would have not been built. The angled ones are scary. No attention was paid to the location or orientation of pins when I first started working with cedar. It was the 6th consecutive failure that caused the light to come on. Obviously it's best to use clean cedar but by mapping the location and orientation of any log/stave pins you have solid data to use when laying out the shape. You have a means of avoiding any pin(s) altogether or placing them either parallel or perpendicular to the back which makes them much less harmful.

Good stuff, Hank. Keep it coming, my friend. Jawge

There's plenty more on the way Jawge. Thanks for watching!

This took all day to accomplish. Can you imagine that? Trimmed the riser to a more reasonable height, block sanded the belly to make the grinder marks go away then cleaned up the radius at the riser. Got rid of the sharp edges at the sides/belly, cut notches in the tips and it's to the short sting we go.

Hooked up the short string and again started pulling. Flexed the limbs 100 times or so then bumped the brace height up to 2". Another 100 or so flex cycles and let it rest a while. Checked the tiller and had to do some sanding. Yes, sanding. I sometimes have trouble controlling the amount of pressure on the scraper. Cedar is really, really soft. So, the scrapers stay under the bench. Instead of scraping, problem areas are block sanded away. Kept on repeating the process until we made it to full brace. It's the top rack pic. Did a bunch more flexing and resting until it was pulling 30 lbs at 19". That's the second rack pic. Checked the tiller again. It looked pretty good so it was back to flexing and resting. In the 3rd rack pic it's pulling 40 lbs at 23" and the 4th rack pic shows it pulling 57 lbs at 29". That's right where we want it.

It's tillered 3/16" positive but that may be too much. Have a look at the bottom pic. The right limb is the top and the matching (side to side) vertical lines are the same length. We'll get the handle finished up, shoot a couple hundred arrows with it then have another look at the tiller.

Wow...sweeeeeet Hank. That bend looks really good. Looks like it'll be a sweet n light in the hand shooter.

That is looking really good Hank. I hear ya on how soft this stuff is.

Looks great!

Computer aided tillering software. I'm jealous! What is the difference in tiller between the limbs on your last pic? Without the CAD markings it looks perfect with one limb slightly longer. Did you plan it that way?

Hank that came out great! I love the tiller. It is exceptional. Jawge

Outstanding, cant wait to see what finish you give it. I would have called the left side the top though, any reason you went the way you did?

Thanks Blackhawk. Cedar, in general, does make an extremely light in the hand bow though it can be a little sluggish compared to other woods. I have found that its cast is similar to oak but it's performance pales in comparison to osage and hickory. I'm thinking that the hickory backing will bump the performance up a notch or two.

Thanks Lombard. It amazes me that red cedar performs as it does. I call it "thumbnail soft", meaning that you can dig your thumbnail into it and leave a really deep mark. But, as you well know, it's a gorgeous wood; a real attention grabber and a bit of a challenge to work. I like that!

Thanks Guar. When you gonna start a red cedar?

Mr. Angler, as my old physics prof would say, you are astute in your analysis. The CAD program was purchased several years ago as part of a business venture. The venture folded but I was left with this cool software. Gotta use it for something, why not bow making? As for the difference in the limbs, read on!

Thanks Jawge. Do you remember how my first one posted here on the wall looked? Looking back on it now, man, it's pitiful!

Thanks Bob. We're going with a natural finish, hand rubbed oil/wax. Thought about going with polyurethane at first but then later thought nah, it's too purty for poly. As for the limb assignment, I was told at a very young bow making age that the weaker limb should be the top. The weaker limb is the right one in the pic above. It's easy for me to get confused with this notion and often think it should be the other way around.

I shoot split finger so, guys, maybe we can clear up this confusion once and for all?

Hank, that's alright. My first one is probably in Broken Bow Gardens. :) Jawge

Jawge, you have one of those too? Mine is a 55 gal drum with the top cut off. I call it Splinter Town. Right now it has a population of 12.

Hank, here we ceremoniously cremate the ones that don't make it. Sometimes with blood and tears.

I wasn't kidding. Look closely. :) Jawge

Oh man....Jawge, you're killin me here! Can't hardly type I'm laughing so hard. You're not kidding!

Done the cremation thing too Lombard, always on the campfire with a short eulogy. It is a sad affair to see one go.

Laughed right out loud when I see that photo Jawge. Way to re-purpose though. You have very nice garden there.

Anytime I make a nice quick shooting bow. I just look over to my "Broken Bow Garden" and realize there's not much difference between a bow and a tomato stake. :) Jawge

Come to think of it some of them ended up in the wood stove too. I try not to laugh when someone breaks a bow and gets all depressed and stuff. LOL. It doesn't bother me I can always use another tomato stake. :) Jawge

The wood work, shaping, sanding, polishing etc. is finished.

Right after tillering and before doing anything else I like to put a few drops of thin CA (top pic) on every knot/pin, let it soak in and cure then run over it with some coarse steel wool. These areas are harder than the surrounding wood. Over time they have a tendency to develop small cracks. It's not harmful to the bow, they just look bad. Sealing 'em up with CA helps that from happening.

Laid out the handle/shelf and started shaping it using a rat tail file to cut in the fades. Followed that with the 4-in-1, taking the handle down to the line. Cut the shelf in with a chisel and rough shaped the riser. Block sanded the handle to take away the file marks then finished shaping the riser and overlays. Sanded the entire bow with increasingly smaller grit sandpaper finishing up with steel wool. It's ready for the string!

Long view of the belly.

That looks nice Hank. Good tip on the knots too.

Really nice, Hank. Good stuff right there. Bowyering at its best. Hope the newcomers are motivated to making shavings. Jawge

The best camera in the world won't show how pretty that really is as compared to probably seeing it in person hank. Cheers on that one. And what happened with that deflex and how much did it end up following the string if that deflex stayed after tillering?

That bow sure looks special. What a fine looking one you are making Hank.

George....you crack me up.

Russell

Real nice, makes me want to dig out the ERC stave i have and start working on it, but i have a couple of others going i need to finish up :) Again beautiful bow !

Sweet job on that one from start to finish. Can't believe all the knots you got away with on the belly.

Hank, Your tiller is beautiful! I always strive for that circular tiller, but it seems to elude me. Practice makes perfect!

Guys, your support and encouragement is more that welcomed and greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Lombard, gave the CA trick a try a couple cedars back and seemed to work very well. Now it's standard practice. It would be better to not have to mess with it but you know how it is working with what you have. Just gotta make it work.

When are you starting a cedar Jawge? No doubt it would turn it great.

You're absolutely right Blackhawk. It's hard to capture inherent character with a camera. They can't see what we do. The deflex crept up to 2 1/4" through the tillering, 1/4" above what was originally thought. I would like to see less, like 0, but we can live with it.

Kind of hard to explain but every cedar built is special to me Russell. Don't know why but they are. Weird huh?

John, get those babies finished up and drag out the cedar. I would like to see how you work it.

Knots on the belly? Guar, I don't see any knots on the belly. Are you looking at the right pic? I'm joking of course. There's more there than I would like to see but if you take a good look at the pic you can see that they either run across side to side or they are straight through the belly. You can get by with them if they run in the right direction.

I sometimes have trouble with the tiller too Crunch. It helps to mark the limbs. Then you have consistent reference points to check from. Putting the lines 2 or 3 inches apart on the sides of each limb works good for me.

Hank, that is one impressive bow! From what I've seen and read ERC is not a wood that is easily made in to a bow of that length and weight. This thread is now saved.

Chris

Hank, lookin' pretty good, my friend. That sure is a beautiful wood. Jawge

Hank, beautiful bow nice work. Dan

We're about ready to wrap this one up. The string is made, add a few more coats of oil to the finish, get her waxed up, glue on the plate and she's done. Well, except for fine tuning of course.

As for the oil, brewed up a batch of Hank's world famous deep penetrating rubbing oil for the base. It now has 8 base coats on it. I'll share the formula with you but you have to promise not to tell anyone ok? It's real easy to make:

1 part linseed oil; 1/2 part tung oil; 1/2 part mineral spirits; 1/2 part naphtha (Zippo fluid will do).

Dump everything together, shake it up and it's ready to go. Use it just like any other rubbing oil. Smear it on, rub it down hard- make the wood warm under your hand but be careful not to burn yourself. It does get hot. It dries fast too. I have put 12 coats on a gunstock in a single day. It makes the grain really pop and brings out all of the character the wood has to offer. Someone could say that the linseed/tung oil blend is redundant. It is to a point but each one has slightly different properties. Tung oil, if your not careful with it , will leave nasty streaks that are very hard to get rid of. By blending them together you get the best of both without the streaky nature of tung. The finishing oil is a slightly different blend and I'll share that with you in the next post.

On to the graph. Whenever a bow is nearing completion, I like to pull some number into a spreadsheet to generate a baseline performance graph. It's interesting to see how thing change over time. This bow lost a couple pounds through final sanding but, as we all know, this is typical. I expect it to pick that back up plus a couple more as it cures out. There was a couple cedars that gained 5 lbs! If you look at the graph you can see that this bow, as it sits now, is pulling 30 lbs @ 20", 40 lbs @ 24" and 52 lbs @ 28". You can get a very accurate estimate of the draw weight at any point during the draw using the graph. Its interesting to note that at around 25" the draw weight curve starts going a little more vertical. It's been my experience that this is an indication of the wood approaching its maximum limit. Take the draw past 28" and damage to the wood, if not breakage, will occur.

That's enough of that! There's a bow in the corner waiting to be finished.

Thanks Chris! You're absolutely right, red cedar is temperamental and can be quite a fooler. Some break on the tree and it's usually the one you think will turn out "perfect". Some will tease you into thinking everything is fine by living through the whole build process only to fall apart in your hand on the 10th shot. I once swore that I would never work with red cedar again. But, here we are- living for the challenge! Is that not part of what makes bow making the incredible hobby that it is?

Jawge, Dan, Thanks for the encouragement and following along!

Guys and Gals, it's finished. Rubbed on the last coat of finishing oil this morning and put one coat of paste wax on it. I'm quite pleased with how the finish looks. The recipe makes for a deep, low luster finish that, to me, is perfect for a bow. What is the recipe? It's hard to make too:

1 part deer or beef tallow; 1/4 part paste wax. Put the tallow and wax in a small container and melt it together in the microwave or on the stove top. It's best used while still warm. Rub it into the wood just like the base rubbing oil. Let it sit a few minutes then wipe off the excess with a rag. You can put on as may coats as you want.

So how does it shoot? Like a dream! Very light in the hand, unbelievably smooth in the draw and noticeably snappier than previous red cedars. Its liveliness, no doubt, comes from the hickory backing. Build some arrows to match it and we have one fine target bow here.

Stats: Eastern red cedar flatbow, hickory backed; Physical weight: 16 3/4oz w/string; Draw weight: 52 lbs @ 28"; Length: 68" overall, 66" n2n; Limbs: equal length, 13/16" thick @ fade, 7/16" thick @ tip, 1 5/16" wide @ fade, mid limb taper to 1/2" @ tip; French walnut riser and tip overlays.

I hope everyone has enjoyed this build-along as much as I have. It was a real blast and I hope to do another one soon. Thanks for tuning in and for all your support from start to finish!

Hank

Sweet! It just fuels my desire to post some pics after I get the Hickory backing I need from Rudder Bows! Shipping was too high for a 72" piece of wood so I spent another $125 on more wood for only an additional $4 in shipping! Good thing my wife loves me!

Oooooooo.......ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! :)

Very cool. I enjoyed this thoroughly.

really good looking bow! well written and photographed build too.

danke Sepp

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